Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington
October 14, 2024 at 3:00 AM
Douglas Hamlin, who was appointed to lead the NRA this summer in the wake of a long-running corruption scandal at the gun rights group, was involved decades ago in the sadistic killing of a fraternity house cat named BK, according to several local media reports at the time.
Hamlin pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of animal cruelty brought against him and four of his fraternity brothers in 1980, when he was an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. The charge was brought against Hamlin under a local Ann Arbor ordinance. All five members of Alpha Delta Phi were later expelled from the fraternity.
The details of the case, described in local media reports at the time, are gruesome. The house cat was captured, its paws were cut off, and was then strung up and set on fire. The killing, which occurred in December 1979, was allegedly prompted by anger that the cat was not using its litterbox.
The case caused such a furore locally that some students and animal rights activists wore buttons and armbands in memory of BK.
Hamlin served as the fraternity president at the time, according to the media reports. While Hamlin’s exact role in the killing is unclear, a report in the Ann Arbor News published in March 1980 – at the time of the court case – said that district court judge SJ Elden singled Hamlin out for criticism, saying he could have prevented it from happening as the leader of the fraternity.
The judge called the cat killing an “unconscionable and heinous” act and suggested the fraternity had tried to engage in a coverup to protect its members after the crime was exposed.
“Heartlessness must be in the job description to run the NRA,” said Nick Suplina, senior vice president for law and policy at Everytown for Gun Safety. “This revelation shows that the NRA has failed to turn the page on its scandal-plagued leaders and its doom spiral continues with Hamlin at the helm.”
One of the fraternity brothers who was charged at the time and spoke to the Guardian on the condition that his name would not be used said the incident had been “regrettable” and “not a good chapter for anybody”.
The Guardian contacted Hamlin through multiple spokespersons at the NRA and tried to reach Hamlin by phone but did not receive any response to questions about the incident.
Shelagh Abbs Winter, who was named in a media report as the student who reported the incident to authorities at the time, told the Guardian she recalled many of the details, including that she had felt compelled to report the incident to authorities after she learned what had happened from another student who was a pledge at the fraternity.
Winter was and remains an animal rights activist, and expressed surprise when she was contacted by the Guardian for this story, because she had not followed Hamlin’s career nor realized that the 1979 incident would still be personally relevant decades later.
“You don’t know how amazing this is to me, because I am a member of Moms Demand Action,” she said, referring to one of the most influential grassroots gun control advocacy groups in the country, which has proved to be a thorn in the side of the NRA. Winter said she remembered feeling threatened at the time for coming forward.
“Once a creep, always a creep,” she said.
A cook who worked at the fraternity at the time and asked not to be named said he recalled speaking to police and never returning back to work because he feared reprisal. “After it was disclosed that the police were investigating, a meeting was called, and the members were told to say nothing; not to cooperate; and not to, essentially, give up their brothers,” the person told the Guardian.
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According to press reports, the charges were ultimately expunged from the men’s records after they completed 200 hours each of animal-related community service.
Hamlin was elected by the NRA’s board to serve as CEO in July. After graduating from college, Hamlin joined the Marine Corps and later began working at the gun rights group, serving as executive director of its publications division.
Hamlin’s promotion followed a New York judge’s ruling that the longtime head of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre, would be barred from holding a paid position with the group after a jury found him guilty of misspending millions of dollars in NRA funds for his own benefit.
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